CONTROL AND DATA PLANE SOLUTIONS FOR CARRIER-AGGREGATION BASED WLAN OFFLOAD

摘要

Systems and methods for controlling data traffic offload to a WLAN (e.g., a Wi-Fi network) from a WWAN (e.g., a 4G LTE network) are generally disclosed herein. One embodiment includes data traffic offload techniques managed by a Radio Resource Control (RRC) in a networked device including offloading data at the IP, PDCP, RLC, or MAC layers; another embodiment includes data traffic offload techniques managed by a MAC Scheduler with RRC control. Configurations for multimode user equipment (UE) and multimode base stations are also described herein, including configurations for implementing a Multiple Radio Access Technology (Multi-RAT) aggregation function to offload data from a WWAN to a WLAN and transmit the data via the WLAN using a Layer 2 transport.

主权项

1. A method performed by a evolved Node B (eNB) base station for offloading data flows from a primary network to a secondary network, the method comprising:
providing an aggregation function configured to transfer data between a primary network interface and a secondary network interface; offloading data from a primary data flow within the primary network interface based on network condition measurements in the primary network, by transferring the data to a secondary data flow within the secondary network interface using the aggregation function; and tunneling data with the secondary data flow over the secondary network at a Layer 2 level using the secondary network interface; wherein the tunneled data is identifiable as offloaded from the primary network.